50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Ten

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the tenth and final thread of the 50 Books Challenge for this year.

The challenge was to read fifty books (or more!) in 2023, though reading fifty wasn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, it’s not too late to join, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

The first thread of the year is here, the second one here, the third one here here, the fourth one here, the fifth one here, the sixth one here, the seventh one here, eighth one here and the ninth one here

How have you got on this year?

The Christmas Appeal - reviewed up thread. Easy reading , entertaining and enjoyable - hit the spot as the Xmas madness is about to start. Parents literally incoming!

Any ideas for something lovely and wintry that I could buy now and read this evening?

The Long Shadow by Celia Fremlin

Imogen’s husband died two months ago, when she suddenly receives a phone call in the middle of the night accusing her of murdering him. This is followed by assorted annoying relatives and hangers-on congregating for Christmas, and Imogen finds that they might not all be there just to keep her company.

I really enjoyed this. Fremlin does a great job of setting the scene and gradually cranking up the tension. It’s not massively Christmassy - Christmas does feature but only briefly, and most of the story actually takes place in January. I didn’t mind that though!

Ooh, I might squeeze that in, Chessie - I’ve got my (not-so) little hoard of kindle Fremlins from a splurge when they were cheap a few years ago, and I’m pretty sure this is one of them…

68 Trustee From The Toolroom - Nevil Shute

A lovely little story to finish the year off - despite my reservations, this was much more enjoyable than A Town Like Alice, a proper old-fashioned, feelgood adventure tale.

That's my plan too, I grabbed it recently in the deals. Although now I say that, I wonder if I intended to buy The Wolves of Willoughby Chase instead? Not sure why they are grouped together in my mind unless it's because of tv adapations?

Re-read of The Dark is Rising, Remus? Or Laurie Lee's A Village Christmas?

I re-read the whole’Dark’ series last year and was a bit disappointed. I can’t think of/find anything that I haven’t already read.

Sorry - forgot to say thank you.

I got sent The Bear And The Nightingale by Mr B Remus I think it's meant to be wintry.

Have dropped off this thread this year but will hop on for next year and challenge myself to read more. Currently reading From West Yorkshire to East Berlin by Aisla Mellor and enjoying this so far. Will review once finished.

149 The Wren The Wren by Anne Enright
I enjoyed this literary fiction telling the stories of the lives of a mother and daughter from both points of view (and one POV section from the grandfather). It explores love, family, motherhood and the ways that damage can pass down the generations. Surprisingly, I identified with the daughter more than the mother in this one (who was much closer to being from my generation). Not a bold, but a good read.

150 If we were Villains
A dark academia set in a private American college of the arts. Our POV character, Oliver is studying acting exclusively through the works of Shakespeare, and is fascinated by and admiring of his fellow students. This is basically The Secret History with Shakespeare instead of Ancient Greece, and if I was in my pretentious early 20s phase reading it, I’d have adored it as much as the former. As it is it was just okay. Diverting enough but too much angst.

151 Bleak House- Charles Dickens
I’ve made a conscious effort to read classics this year and am surprised by how many of them I’ve really enjoyed- none more so than this. My two previous attempts at Dickens (admittedly many years ago) resulted in DNFs and I fully expected this to be the same. Orphan Esther Summerson is brought to the home of her guardian Mr Jarndyce, along with two wards of court caught up in a long-running chancery dispute which also involves Jarndyce himself. Mysteries, murders, love stories etc ensue. I didn’t like the farcical bits like Mr Smallweed, but I loved the book itself. A definite bold.

152 The Republic- Plato
I don’t think philosophy is for me- I’m neither smart nor interested enough. I found this confusing and irritating at times. In fact I skimmed the last few sections. Maybe if I studied it in a course but I don’t think I’ll attempt any more ancient philosophy.

I have struggled with reading this year and have therefore read some absolute dross that doesn't require any thought or headspace haha!

1. As Good As Dead, Holly Jackson
2. A Great Reckoning, Louise Penny

3. The Reading List, Sara Nisha Adams 4. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan

1. Glass Houses, Louise Penny
2. Kingdom of the Blind, Louise Penny
3. Home Corner, Ruth Thomas
4. Murder Most Unladylike, Robin Stevens
5. Moonflower Murders, Antony Horowitz

10. A Terrible Kindness, Jo Browning Wroe 11. A Better Man, Louise Penny 12. One Ordinary Day at a Time, Sarah J. Harris 13. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway 14. All the Devil's Are Here, Louise Penny 15. It Starts With Us, Colleen Hoover 16. The Stopover, TL. Swan 17. The Takeover, TL. Swan 18. The Madness of Crowds, Louise Penny 19. The Cassonova, TL. Swan 20. Things We Never Got Over, Lucy Score 21. Things We Hide From the Light, Lucy Score 22. The Alice Network, Kate Quinn 23. The Winners, Fredrik Backman 24. Apples Never Fall, Lianne Moriarty 25. Bleeding Heart Yard, Elly Griffith's 26. State of Terror, Hilary Clinton & Louise Penny 27. Romantic Comedy, Curtis Sittenfeld 28. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver 29. The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot, Marianne Cronin 30. Lucifer's Tears, James Thomson 31. Night work, Nora Roberts 32. After You'd Gone, Maggie O'Farrel 33. The Oceanography of the Moon, Glendy Vanderah 34. The Christie Affair, Nina de Gramont 35. The Lying Game, Ruth Ware 36. The Sanatorium, Sarah Pearce 37. Things We Left Behind, Lucy Score 38. The Last Mrs. Parrish, Liv Constantine 39. The Outcast Dead, Elly Griffith's 40. Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus 41. The Running Grave, Robert Galbraith 42. The Maid, Nina Prose 43. A Court of Thorns & Roses, Sarah J Mass 44. A Court of Mist & Fury, Sarah J Mass 45. A Court of Wings & Ruin, Sarah J Mass 46. I Will Find You, Harlem Coben 47. Hidden Pictures, Jason Rekulak 48. The Armour of Light, Ken Follett 49. The Book of Accidents, Chuck Wending 50. Homecoming, Kate Morten 51. Cotillion, Georgette Heyer 52. Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yamos 53. Iron Flame, Rebecca Yamos 54. The Housemaid, Frieda McFadden 55. Miles Ever After, TL. Swan 56. The Keeper of Stories, Sally Page 57. The Light Through The Leaves, Glendy Vanderah 58. These Old Shades, Georgette Heyer

I reckon I’ll finish one, maybe two more books before the end of the year, but I’m heading for a round number total….getting there with:

89: The Ship Beneath the Ice - Mensun Bound

Picked up as a recent Kindle deal. The author is a very experienced marine archaeologist who's located many 'lost' wrecks, and his quest here was for Shackleton's Endurance, famously trapped in ice in the Weddell Sea in 1915, and subsequently lost (the postscript is the epic story of the survival of all Shackleton’s expedition members after almost unimaginable feats of heroic effort). In 2019 Bound was part of an expedition to find the wreck, travelling on board a modern, fully-equipped ship with every technological aid - but the extreme temperatures, bad weather and malfunctioning hi-tech equipment meant they were defeated.
The post-script (and second part of the book) is that another trip was able to take place, on the same ship, in 2022 - and this time Endurance was found.

I enjoyed this a lot: the descriptions of the amazing landscape (seascape really, but so regularly frozen that the crew often headed off the ship onto the ice) and climate really captured my imagination. I also like to read about anyone doing incredibly specialised jobs, and there was plenty of this, with all the scientists and crew working at a dizzyingly high level of expertise to make the expedition a success - at the same time, Mensun Bound managed to make it all sound understandable to a lay-person, which is quite a feat. A nice blend of history and present-day expedition; in fact, a bit like a TV documentary in book form.

85 Empireland by Sathnam Sanghera
Reviewed a few times on these threads so I will just say thank you to all those who recommended it. Often funny, without pulling any punches about the reality of Britain’s attitude to any part of the world they could strip wealth from.

I’m reading a very gritty novel I’m not sure I’ll finish before the end of the year. In fact, it’s the very definition of In The Bleak Midwinter

I hope that whatever you all want or need from Christmas comes to you. 🎄
If you find it a difficult time I hope it passes as quickly and uneventfully as you wish it to.

May the New Year bring us all new surprises and delights in literary form and the desire to share them with others. You’ve been fabulous, 50 Bookers, thank you! ❤️

Someone has created a Spotify Wrapped style thing for Goodreads.

This is the link for those that want to try it https://www.myyearinbooks.com/

46. Bone by Bone Sanjida Kay Squeezed in another before the year end (to be fair I did skim some of the incredibly boring bits in the middle). Helen moves to Bristol where her young daughter is bullied, acting rashly she pushes the perpetrator over causing him to gash his head. This mildly interesting set up quickly petered out into boring predictableness. Nothing seems believable and Helen is infuriating. In the end her daughter moves to a lovely private school so everyone can live happily every after away from the psychopaths and uncaring staff that inhabit the local state 🙄

74. Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad - Daniel Finkelstein
Haven't got time for a detailed review but I thought this was wonderful. Finkelstein's family biography is fairly unusual in that he had grandparents from both Germany and eastern Poland, so the story picks up both major strands of WWII. Finkelstein's maternal grandmother started out in Berlin, fled to Amsterdam and ultimately was sent to Belsen with her daughters, while his paternal grandmother was born in Lwow (now Lviv in Ukraine) and was deported to Kazakhstan with her son. His grandfathers had equally compelling journeys, separated from their wives and children after being forced to leave their home countries. I had no idea of Finkelstein's connection to the Wiener Holocaust Library, which was founded by his grandfather who, from the early 1930s, saw the importance of documenting the rise of the Nazis. What stood out for me, though, was the overwhelming efforts of Finkelstein's grandmothers to keep their children alive and to get them out of the other side as decent, educated human beings. Highly recommended.

Christmas Pudding Nancy Mitford
In true Nancy style a load of bright young things and eccentric older ones gather in the country. People fall in and out of love,
propose, drive their motor cars and generally have a good old time. It’s an early Mitford I think, but has all the wit and charm of her later novel(la)s.

A Village Christmas- Laurie Lee

This is a collection of his later writings and really only the first is about Christmas. Quite a few about his London life. Still enjoyed them though.

39 Abyss: World on the Brink - the Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 by Max Hastings

I'm very unlikely to make 50 but at least 40 looks realistic (I blame the literal months I spent on Oppenheimer tbh). But this is a bold all right. As I've said before, Hastings is excellent at a strong journalistic account of the post WWII conflicts, stripped of the soupy reverence he sometimes has for the Great Generation. And surely this is one of the great journalist's stories of the 20th century. The scale of the potential horror and the forces pushing in that direction are astounding. JF Kennedy comes out particularly well, balancing on a knife edge and keeping a clear focus on his objectives. The portrait of RFK here is a useful counterpoint to the near-sanctity he sometimes us given in recent articles. A balloon-puncturing clarity from Hastings though pointing out American assumptions about what they had the right to do in other countries.

Merry Christmas everyone! (It’s already Christmas morning here in the Upside Down, and DD has been awake since soon after midnight .)

At least DP followed the detailed instructions about which books to buy…

Merry Christmas @LadybirdDaphne - your DP has done well!
19 - Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia by Hadley Freeman. Freeman explores her history with anorexia, from the onset of the illness as an early teen to how it affected her as a young adult who swapped recreational drug use for self-starvation.

I thought that this was sensitive and nuanced. While Freeman describes an off the cuff remark from a classmate as a significant trigger for her eating disorder, she notes that this is not the same as the cause, and looks at how for most people there are multiple predisposing factors that most likely in and of themselves would not lead to illness. There are interesting discussions about links with brain chemistry, heritable factors, and autism. This is also a kind book, with Freeman taking a gentle and sympathetic approach to both people with anorexia and their families.

40. The Party Crasher by Sophie Kinsella
I haven't read a Sophie Kinsella for a long time, and picked this up at a charity shop. She's the uber-chick lit writer to me. Distinctly better than I expected, but if you don't like this sort of thing, it's very much this sort of thing. Effie's parents are splitting up and her dad has a new girlfriend. There's a party at the family home Effie grew up in, but she's not invited. However, she won't be kept away.